Digital Commons Network^™

Visitor Use Management: How The Timed Entry Permit Reservation System At Parks And Protected Areas Influence The Perception Of Sustainable Recreation And Impact Visitor Motivations, Cassandra L. Onufrak

Masters Theses

Parks and protected areas across the United States have undergone substantial change in recent years, specifically pertaining to visitation trends and patterns. National parks have endured rapid growth in park visitation and popular attractions within park boundaries now experience a high visitor concentration and traffic. As visitation within national parks increases, there is a high probability that visitor-related impacts, such as vegetation trampling, wildlife disturbance, soil erosion, and intra-visitor conflict, are also likely to increase. Visitors are more likely to feel crowded and rushed, and ultimately label their park experience as low or poor quality. Through the use of Visitor …

Extending Public Accessibility To The Mind: Designing Airports For People With Aphasia, Savannah Eloise Garzon

Masters Theses

Imagine traveling in an airport in another country. The language is entirely foreign, and all signs are written in text you cannot understand. You have ten minutes to make your connection. How do you find your gate? How do you ask questions? This hypothetical generation of panic is the reality for many travelers every day who suffer from aphasia. Aphasia is a language disorder often caused by stroke or other brain injury that makes it difficult to communicate, read, and process numbers, especially in stressful environments like an airport. More than two million people in America suffer from aphasia and …

Microplastics In Local Communities’ Tap Water, Zachary T. Rattell

Masters Theses

Microplastics are an emerging environmental contaminant. One of the ways microplastics can get into the environment is by the breakdown of larger plastics. These plastics can come from industrial practices, discarded fabrics, agriculture, and general plastic waste. As these plastics are broken down microplastics leach into the environment. The widespread use of plastics has resulted in the spread of microplastic contaminants all over the world. Microplastics have been reported to be in drinking water, so this paper is looking at the presence of microplastics in local communities of different demographics and socioeconomic statuses. In other studies of different drinking water …

Climate Change Attitudes Of United States Family Forest Owners And Their Influence On Forest Management Practices, Logan Miller

Masters Theses

Understanding family forest owners’ (FFOs’) attitudes and behaviors towards climate change will allow for more sustainable forest management practices to be implemented, helping to combat climate change and its impacts. The goals for this research are (1) to begin measuring U.S. FFO attitudes toward climate change, (2) to determine what factors impact these attitudes, and (3) to determine how they influence the FFO’s management practices using the Responsible Environmental Behavior (REB) framework (Hines et al. 1987). Chapter 1 explores the different facets of my thesis project focusing on forests and forests’ ecosystem services, forest ownership in the United States, and …

Investigating Disparities And Safety Equity In Pedestrian Nighttime Crashes In Michigan, Sia Isaria Mwende

Masters Theses

For the past eleven years (2011 - 2021) in Michigan, 76 percent of all fatal pedestrian crashes occurred at night. Over the same period, about 36 percent of pedestrian nighttime crashes were fatal or incapacitating (KA), while only 25 percent of daytime pedestrian crashes were fatal or incapacitating (KA). Previous studies suggest that, overall, poor neighborhoods and racial minorities are associated with more pedestrian crashes. With more fatal and incapacitating pedestrian crashes occurring at night, it is imperative to examine how these crashes are distributed by economic status and racial makeup. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the racial and …

Mapping Past Land Use Changes And Modeling Future Urbanization Patterns In A Mid-Sized American City, Duncan P. Mccurry

Masters Theses

On a global scale, humans have been moving from rural to urban areas at an increasingly fast rate in a process called urbanization. It is crucial to understand and predict the impacts of urbanization because city expansion encroaches on farmland and woodland, reducing regional ecosystem services. Therefore, urbanization must be well planned in a forecasting manner. The objective of this study is to map the land use change in Knox County, Tennessee, from 2001-2019 to identify the urbanization trends and understand the dynamic geospatial relationships between the urban and rural areas. The geospatial mapping was done using USGS land use …

Creating And Implementing Strategies For Nrhp Eligibility Assessment At The Fort Polk Military Reservation, Matthew Thomas Hoover

Masters Theses

Large U.S. military installations, such as Fort Polk military reservation in south-central Louisiana, have for decades been the sites of cultural resource management (CRM) investigations, primarily due to the corpus of federal legislation developed to protect archaeological resources. These projects have yielded massive amounts of material and geospatial data and allowed researchers to develop sophisticated methodologies for analyzing site distribution, lithic tool manufacture, and many other avenues of inquiry. However, the cultural chronology represented on Fort Polk is still not well understood, and as a result assignation of National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)significance to sites on Fort Polk has …

Modeling Spatial Distributions Of Tidal Marsh Blue Carbon Using Morphometric Parameters From Lidar, Bonnie Turek

Masters Theses

Tidal marshes serve as important “blue carbon” ecosystems that accrete large amounts of carbon with limited area. While much attention has been paid to the spatial variability of sedimentation within salt marshes, less work has been done to characterize spatial variability in marsh carbon density. Driven by tidal inundation, surface topography, and sediment supply, soil properties in marshes vary spatially with several parameters, including marsh platform elevation and proximity to the marsh edge and tidal creek network. We used lidar to extract these morphometric parameters from tidal marshes to map soil organic carbon (SOC) at the meter scale. Fixed volume …

The Application Of Microbial Source Tracking To Aid In Site Prioritization For Remediation In Lower Michigan, John J. Hart

Masters Theses

Non-point source fecal pollution is a threat to both the environment and public health. Climate change, aging infrastructure, and intensified agricultural practices are predicted to accentuate this issue. In Michigan, due to the high instance of aging infrastructure and intensified agriculture, non-point source fecal pollution has caused many waterbodies to exceed the state standards posing a risk to recreational activities and source water. Due to this threat, there is an increased effort to identify and remediate these sources. My study focused on improving the identification of non-point source fecal pollution through a combination of culture-based and molecular fecal indicator bacteria …

Factors Affecting Groundwater Nitrate Concentration In Madinah Area, Saudi Arabia, Majed M. Almutairi

Masters Theses

High levels of nitrate in groundwater are a serious problem in Madinah Area, Saudi Arabia. Identifying factors affecting groundwater nitrate contamination is important for managing groundwater quality. This study examined factors that have significant impacts on the high level of groundwater nitrate in Madinah Area. Factors examined included well-depth and land cover. Relationships between variables were explored using three statistical approaches: the Kruskal-Wallis test and two types of regression (ordinary least squares [OLS] and geographically weighted regression [GWR]).

Nitrate concentration data show that 73% of obtained groundwater samples exceeded the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maximum contaminant level (MCL) …

Improving Future Vehicle Fuel Economy And Operational Design Domain Through Novel Data Pipelines, Kyle James Carow

Masters Theses

Modern automobiles have greatly advanced in recent years, with technological developments that enhance performance, safety, and comfort. However, there is still much room for improvement. Today’s vehicles are heavily reliant on the combustion of fossil fuels, proven to be harmful for the environment on both a local and global scale. In addition, the safety benefits of autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems are not yet fully realized due to the limited operational design domain of these technologies. In this research, these needs are addressed through the development of two novel data pipelines. In the first study, a novel methodology …

Microscopic Traffic Simulation Modeling And Communication Tool For Post-Disaster Evacuation Routing, Nicholas Kutheis

Masters Theses

"This research evaluated the effectiveness of conducting traffic simulation models and developing a mobile application to serve as a communication channel for emergency evacuation preparation and routing. An iOS and Android app was developed to display emergency events to users with suggested routes for evacuation and a microscopic traffic simulation model was conducted for the St. Louis (MO) metropolitan region that analyzed various road networks with projected evacuation demand.

A mobile application coded in Swift (Apple) and Kotlin (Android) featured an emergency notification screen that displayed the type of emergency warning (e.g., earthquake, flood, or no warnings) with provided routes …

Tropospheric Correction For Insar Using Machine Learning, Ngo Hi Kenny Yue

Masters Theses

"Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a popular technique for studying Earth's surface deformation caused by phenomena like earthquakes and subsidence. However, its accuracy is limited by tropospheric delays caused by water vapor in the atmosphere. This limitation can be overcome by using methods that correct for tropospheric noise, such as statistical, empirical, and predictive approaches. This study explores the potential of using machine learning algorithms to predict the zenith total delay caused by tropospheric effects in InSAR measurements. The study employs two different machine learning algorithms, random forest and neural networks, to learn the relationship between numerical weather prediction …

Optimizing The Placement Of Multiple Uav--Lidar Units Under Road Priority And Resolution Requirements, Zachary Michael Osterwisch

Masters Theses

"Real-time road traffic information is crucial for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) applications, like traffic navigation or emergency response management, but acquiring such data is tremendously challenging in practice because of the high costs and inefficient placement of sensors. Some modern ITS applications contribute to this problem by equipping vehicles with multiple light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors, which are expensive and gather data inefficiently; one solution that avoids vehicle-mounted LiDAR acquisition has been to install elevated LiDAR instruments along roadways, but this approach remains unrefined. The eventual development of sixth-generation (6G) wireless communication will enable new, creative solutions to solve …

Plants And People: Foraging To Farming Foodway Transition From Late Archaic To Early Woodland In Western North Carolina, U.S.A., Catherine Linn Herring

Masters Theses

During the Late Archaic to Early Woodland Transition, 3,200 years B.P. [Before Present], some gathering communities in the Eastern Woodlands began to increase their cultivation of plants. While archaeologists have located several sites in the Upper Tennessee River Valley and near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee that explicitly show an increase in plant cultivation, less research has focused on the North Carolina Appalachian Summit Region. This paper uses paleoethnobotanical data and spatial analysis of site locations to explore cultivation and settlement patterns in Jackson and Swain Counties, North Carolina. Data include site locations obtained from the North …

Evaluating Current And Future Potential Distribution Of Epiphytic Orchids In The Congo Basin With Ecological Niche Models, Michael L. Ngoh

Masters Theses

The Congo Basin Forest harbors a rich diversity of epiphytic communities, with the Orchidaceae alone making up more than 50% of all epiphytes in the region. Despite the huge diversity of epiphytes, many species, including epiphytic orchids, are at risk to a diverse array of threats. Climate change for instance poses severe threats to epiphytic orchids due to elevated temperatures, prolonged periods of droughts, as well as reduced rainfall across the Congo Basin Forest. In this study, we used ecological niche modeling and GIS techniques to identify spatial patterns of species richness, potential future climate refugia, and novel climatic suitability …

Exchange And Social Interaction In The Tennessee River Valley: A Geospatial Approach To The Analysis Of Late Archaic Archaeological Sites, Justin S. Bailey

Masters Theses

The cultural manifestation known as the Shell Mound Archaic persisted in the lower Midwest and Midsouth region of the Eastern United States for over four millennia beginning in the Middle Archaic ca. 8900 cal BP and terminating at the end of the Late Archaic ca 3200 cal BP. A geospatial approach is applied to the analysis of exotic material exchange of the Late Archaic (ca. 5800-3200 cal BP) to assess how foraging peoples in the Tennessee River Valley interacted and persisted during this time. Exotic material items manufactured from copper, marine shell, steatite, and other nonlocal materials demonstrate distinct spatial …

Three Dimensional Spatio-Temporal Cluster Analysis Of Sars-Cov-2 Infections, Keith W. Allison

Masters Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the need for fine-scale analysis of the clustering of cases of infectious disease in order to better understand and prevent the localized spread of infection. The students living on the University of Massachusetts, Amherst campus provided a unique opportunity to do so, due to frequent mandatory testing during the 2020-2021 academic year, and dense living conditions. The South-West dormitory area is of particular interest due to its extremely high population density, housing around half of students living on campus during normal conditions. Using data gathered by the Public Health Promotion Center (PHPC), we analyzed the …

Offshore Speculation: Generative Ethics For Submerged Lands, Leigh Miller

Masters Theses

Where is the line between land and sea? As the United States begins to extend renewable energy infrastructures offshore, it will fundamentally blur the boundary between submerged and visible lands. In communities unfamiliar with landscapes of extraction and generation, the realities of this emerging industry will challenge notions of ownership, aesthetic values, and environmental ethics.

Offshore Speculation opens a dialogue between the discipline of landscape architecture and the spatial politics that support the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels. Reimagining the sea as a new urban territory on submerged land allows honest interrogation of the land-sea binary. Because landscape architects …

Genetic Structure Of Urban White-Tailed Deer In West Michigan, Jacob David Brand

Masters Theses

In urban areas, green spaces are used by humans and wildlife. The proximity between them can lead to both positive and negative interactions, which can make managing urban wildlife difficult. Managers are challenged due to conflicts between wildlife population sizes that can be naturally supported versus those that are socially tolerable. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) thrive in urban environments because their habitat requirements are met within green spaces and backyard vegetation. Matrilineal groups of urban white-tailed deer live within the same areas, at times forming high densities that can lead to the spread of diseases or environmental pests, including hemlock …

Standing Their Ground: Resisting Black Erasure In Knoxville, Tn Through The Citizens Cemetery Project, Tatianna Griffin

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I examine ongoing efforts by Knoxville, Tennessee’s Black community to resist the erasure of their history and sense of place through community and volunteer efforts to reclaim and restore Good Citizens (Citizens) Cemetery. Citizens Cemetery is Knoxville’s oldest Black cemetery, interring nearly six thousand enslaved Africans and their descendants, but today is severely dilapidated due to decades of neglect. Through this project, I explore how framing volunteer opportunities as a critical service-learning program and how Black community efforts to reclaim and restore Citizens combat erasure of Knoxville’s Black community’s history and sense of place. I also explore …

Climate-Driven Selection Results In Powerful Geographic Framework For Predicting Phenotype, Alexandra Neild

Masters Theses

Our ability to prepare for and mitigate the likely ecological and evolutionary impacts of climate change largely depends upon our ability to predict the phenotypic responses of organisms that allow them to persist, adapt, and migrate along environmental stress gradients. Using fifteen populations of cottonwoods, a dominant riparian forest tree, that are distributed along elevation gradients and represent three genetic provenances, we hypothesized and show that: 1) populations within a provenance demonstrate parallel evolutionary responses to climatic gradients associated with elevation; and 2) the evolutionary effects of elevation on bud-break phenology varied by provenance. Across all populations, we find strong …

Influence Of Soil And Land Cover On Chronic Wasting Disease Prevalence In White-Tailed Deer And Mule Deer Across North America, Madison L. Miller

Masters Theses

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that infects deer and is caused by a pathogenic prion. CWD is a concerning wildlife disease because it is incurable, potentially poses a risk to human health, and is spreading rapidly. CWD prions are transmitted both directly via bodily fluids and indirectly through environmental reservoirs such as soil. In this study, we investigated the influence of land cover and soil characteristics on CWD prevalence in white-tailed deer and mule deer. We acquired CWD prevalence data from seven North American regions and used ArcGIS to obtain land cover and soil characteristic data …

A Tipping Point In The Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest: Current And Future Land-Use And Climate Change Trends, Alula Shields

Masters Theses

Many regions of the Amazon are experiencing drastic changes as deforestation and climate change drive the world’s largest continuous rainforest towards a ‘tipping point’. These disturbances are changing natural cycles that once past a critical threshold, will mark an unstoppable transition to an altered ecosystem. Losing areas of the Amazon rainforest will have implications for the global climate, global carbon budget, and global hydrological regimes. Scholars have projected these tipping points for areas of the eastern Amazon rainforest, but much less scholarship focuses on the headwaters of the Western Amazon, an area of great cultural and biological importance. Ecuador is …

Integrating Remote Sensing And Model-Based Datasets In A Machine Learning Model To Map Global Subsidence Associated With Groundwater Withdrawal, Md Fahim Hasan

Masters Theses

"Quantifying groundwater storage loss is becoming increasingly essential globally due limited availability of this major hydrologic component and its long recharge time. Groundwater overdraft gives rises to multiple adverse impacts including land subsidence and permanent groundwater storage loss. In absence of spatially dense monitoring network, publicly available in-situ data, and uniform monitoring strategies, it is challenging to assess the sustained losses from overexploitation of this resource. Remote sensing based techniques have the capacity to fill this gap to increase our groundwater monitoring capacities. Exploring the interrelation between groundwater pumping and land subsidence using remote sensing datasets can be a very …

Coastal Groundwater Catchments Of The Gulf Of Alaska, Aeon Russo

Masters Theses

High latitude mountain environments are experiencing disproportionately adverse effects in a currently changing climate. The Gulf of Alaska (GoA) region is an exemplar of this. Dramatic shifts are occurring in the region’s freshwater reservoirs as glaciers retreat more with each passing year. Research in the region places much focus on observing and predicting climate driven shifts in glacier mass balance, surface discharge, and associated nutrient fluxes to the ocean. On the other hand, coastal groundwater discharge (CGD) is given very little attention. Global and near-global estimates of CGD indicate variable results spanning an order of magnitude. Focusing on regionally specific …

The Growth Of Starry Stonewort (Nitellopsis Obtusa), An Aquatic Invasive Species, In Two Michigan Lakes, And Its Suitable Habitats In The Midwest And Northeast United States, Emily Neuman

Masters Theses

The growth of starry stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa), an aquatic invasive species, in two Michigan Lakes, and its suitable habitats in the Midwest and Northeast United States Aquatic invasive species are a major threat to freshwater ecosystems, but gaps remain in our knowledge on how these species invade, grow, and thrive. This thesis aims to understand how an invasive macroalga, Nitellopsis obtusa (starry stonewort), grows within the littoral zone of two drowned river mouth lakes and suitable habitat preferences across 17 Midwest and northeast U.S.A. states to aid in aquatic invasive species management. In chapter II of this thesis, …

Eyield: Testing The Adoption And Outcomes Of A Novel Online Growth And Yield Model, Timothy S. Kane

Masters Theses

eYield is an online growth and yield platform designed to assist landowners and land managers in making the best choices for their properties. eYield aims to strike a balance between the necessary data to run growth and yield models while remaining accessible to its landowner userbase. The results of this paper point to an encouraging amount of user interest in computer-aided forestry tools, specifically in growth and yield models like eYield. The pre- and post-surveys of eYield from respondents suggest that there is a yearning for tools like eYield and that eYield is reasonably representative of the real world. These …

Terrestrial Laser Scanning Technology For Measuring Streambank Retreat Along East Fork Poplar Creek And Calculating The Effect On Mercury Release., José L. Martínez Collado

Masters Theses

Mercury (Hg) is a globally distributed inorganic pollutants of human concern. The high toxicity is mainly related to the capacity of Hg species to accumulate and biomagnify along aquatic food webs. Along East Fork Poplar Creek (EFPC), erosion represents the principal mercury input into the local waters, eventually reaching humans through the food chain. This research project aimed to monitor streambank erosion along a mercury-contaminated creek using Light Detention and Ranging (Lidar) technology and erosion pins. A Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) was used to generate high-resolution point clouds from August 2020 to January 2021 across nine streambank locations to detect …

Spatiotemporal Distributions Of Sargassum On Grand Cayman, Graeme Timmeney

Masters Theses

This mixed methods research examines individual perceptions of Sargassum on Grand Cayman’s beaches in 2020 using participant mapping, and semi – structured interviews. Results from the participant mapping are compared to satellite detection of sargassum. Sargassum poses health risks to both humans and the natural environment. Decaying Sargassum produces sulfuric gas and prevents young turtle hatchlings from reaching the ocean. Since 2011, Sargassum has diffused beyond the Sargasso Sea into entirely novel locations, spanning from the west African Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Increased biomass has proven to be overwhelming for many Caribbean Islands, including Grand Cayman where hundreds …